Recent reviews by Panos Sigma

I really wanted to give this game a thumbs up, because it's a new strategy RPG IP (my favourite genre) from Square and not another revival / remaster of a classic. Unfortunately, if you're not twelve years old or somewhat familiar with these type of games you won't find anything original or even close in quality to the classics (Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre) it tries so blatantly to copy.

It's biggest flaw is its story telling though. It's the center piece of the game and it's ridiculously BAD. It's full of all the medieval fantasy tropes you have experienced 1000 times before, plus it's so poorly written and voice-acted which sometimes reaches the point of cringe. Even more problematic is that they take their world building and story telling so serious, that your playtime is going to be 50% watching cutscene, after cutscene and 50% managing your troops and doing battles. After 20 hours wasted, I asked myself... do I give a $hit about the characters and the story and forget about the average gameplay mechanics? The answer was NOOOO!

Disappointing title and unoriginal in every category possible...

It's a hard choice for me to recommend this game or not, although I've generally enjoyed it. IMO, Numenera is only for those who appreciate a good story above everything else in a game. It has huge technical weaknesses by today's standards, but huge strengths too. It feels like it's designed 10-15 years ago and I don't mean that to criticize the genre, but the game itself looks dated. I'd love to see more of the Numenera world, but to a more polished and up to date product.

PROS:
- The unique world setting / lore of Numenera is its biggest strength. A nice break from the overdone high-fantasy clichés of other RPGs out there. A nice mixture between sci-fi and fantasy elements.
- Unique story about the meaning of life and the abuse of technology.
- Very interesting companions.
- Great music by the composer of the original Torment game. Fits perfectly with the bizarre world of Numenera.

CONS:
- Graphically the game is a weird mixture between beautiful but low resolution 2D handrawn backrounds which most of the time feel lifeless and very ugly 3D character models.
- Voice over is almost non existent. Having at least fully voiced companions and key characters, it would have given a huge boost to the story IMO. Also, the sound design... Hearing the same 5 seconds loops of ambient noise was quite annoying and distracting when I was trying to read all these massive walls of text.
- The turn-based battles (which are few - for better or for worse) feel like an afterthought to the game. You won't find the depth or challenge of, let's say Divinity Original Sin.

It's bacically an enhanced edition of the game, like enemy within was for the first XCOM. New main antagonists (the chosen), new cool classes, new side missions, some new enemies and battle locations and also some new gameplay mechanics. Personally, I found it overpriced because it costs almost like a new AAA game, when it's basically a collection of official made mods enriching the gameplay of the core game. When they charge 5 euros for their stupid cosmetic DLCs though, you've got the idea of how high they rate their products... Recommended it only if you get it on a sale for half of its original price.

I recommend it only for the hardcore fans of the series like myself who expected a new game for years. For everyone else who isn't struck by nostalgia I think that it's an average adventure game. The first half (episode 1) is at least mediocre, the story is so boring I forced myself to continue it, with easy puzzles, corny dialogue / jokes and hit 'n miss voice acting for most of the characters. The second half (episode 2) gets more interesting plot wise, it has more challenging puzzles and different locations to explore than the overdone good old Paris. Visually the game has beautiful hand drawn 2d backgrounds but the 3d character models are looking a bit weird.Maybe it's their clunky animations, I dunno. IMO they don't fit well togeher. Overall, it was a good fan service but nothing more.